Bad News

by Amy Cross

  “You can't be serious.”

  “I'm just telling you how the world works, Sheriff Malone,” I continue. “You're lucky, we're the only ones really covering this story at the moment, but others will come. Do you really want to be left alone to deal with a pack of voracious reporters? If you think I'm bad, imagine a hundred of me outside your office!”

  “That's a truly chilling thought,” he deadpans.

  “Not to mention,” I continue, “the reporters are only the first wave. After that, there'll come something even more horrific.”

  “And what's that?”

  I lean closer to him, for maximum impact.

  “Bloggers,” I whisper. “If you think people like me are bad, wait until you get bloggers swarming all over your pretty little town. They'll be so horrific, they'll make me seem like Walter Cronkite.”

  “And you want to protect me from all of this, do you?”

  “It's a quid pro quo kind of deal,” I tell him. “I get all the exclusives in this case, and you get the most favorable press coverage that's possible. And who knows? We might even be able to help you with your investigation.”

  “You might, huh?”

  He eats another spoonful of strawberry sundae.

  “Do you have any leads at all?” I ask. “Come on, you must, you're not an idiot. You might try to project the image of a small-town hick, but you're smarter than that. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “The image of a what?” he replies.

  “That was a compliment.”

  “You've lost me.”

  “Am I talking too fast?”

  “Gee,” he replies, “my little town brain can't keep up.”

  “Who kidnapped Kimmy?” I continue. “Those patches of blood in the forest can't be the only thing you've found. Do you have a sense of which way she was taken after she was last seen at that bus stop? I know someone claims to have seen her walking into the forest with a man, but didn't you get a good description? What kind of clothes was he wearing? Did he seem to be coercing Kimmy, or did it look like she was going with him voluntarily? Do you have any evidence to suggest that there was a struggle? What about weapons? What about fibers, was there anything mixed in with the blood?”

  I wait, but he merely stares at me.

  “Now it's your turn to talk,” I tell him.

  Again I wait, and again he just stares.

  “Are you trying to be cool?” I ask. “It's not working.”

  “I don't give a damn what you think,” he replies. “Can you get that into your head? And I don't need you coming down here and telling me how the world works.”

  “I was only -”

  “I'm looking for a missing girl,” he adds, cutting me off, and now he sounds a little angry, “and, yes, there's a good chance that she's dead. This is not some reality TV mess for you to dramatize on your crappy news network. This is someone's daughter, someone's friend, and the longer she stays missing the harder it is for people to come to terms with the possibilities. I'm conducting an investigation that -”

  “A murder investigation, right?” I reply. “You're -”

  “I'm talking here!” he snaps. “I'm conducting an investigation that has multiple avenues, and I really don't give a crap if that doesn't work for your schedule. I have a lot of leads, and sometimes that means that I don't have time to write a nice shiny press report to hand out at eight on the dot each evening. And before you ask, I'm not going to tell you anything about these leads, because my priority is to safeguard the investigation. I don't give a damn about you and your needs.”

  “Freedom of the press -”

  “This has nothing to do with freedom of the press,” he adds. “This is about my freedom to conduct an investigation without being hampered by people like you.”

  With that, he takes another mouthful of dessert.

  “I've never seen anyone eat strawberry sundae this way before,” I tell him after a few seconds. “You're such an angry chewer.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  I open my mouth to tell him that it's just a joke, but somehow the words don't come out. I guess it was kind of flippant, and I can probably do better.

  “You don't matter here,” he continues after a moment. “I don't give a damn about your show, and I don't give a damn about your ratings or about your ego-driven urge to get the latest scoop. When I have something to tell you, Ms. Carter, then I'll let you know. Otherwise, stay out of my way.”

  “Maggie,” I reply.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My name. It's Maggie.”

  “Why do I need to know that?”

  “I was just...”

  My voice trails off, and I can't help thinking that I might have misjudged this situation just a little. In lieu of saying something, I take a sip of my whiskey and then I decide to just down the whole thing. I just need to not look like an asshole here, but I can't think of anything to say that's likely to make the situation any better. And then, just as I'm in danger of making some asinine quip about sundaes, the waitress comes over and collects Malone's empty dessert glass.

  “Everything okay here?” she asks.

  “It's fine,” he tells her, while keeping his eyes fixed firmly on me. “I was just about to head home.”

  “Sorry to hear about you and Jessie,” the waitress says as she turns and walks away. “That must be rough on you, Aiden. I'm sure you can work it out, though. Just hang on in there and I bet she'll take you back before you know it.”

  “Goodnight, Ms. Carter,” he says as he gets to his feet and puts his hat back in place. “Have a nice journey back to the city when you leave.”

  I almost tell him that I'm sticking around for a while longer, but instead I hold back. Looking down at my whiskey glass, I listen to the sound of Malone's footsteps getting further away and then I hear the door opening and closing. I glance out the window, and I'm just about able to make out the sight of him walking away across the parking lot. All things considered, that was probably my second or third worst ever attempt at being diplomatic. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm quite as good at diplomacy as I used to think.

  “Hey,” I say, turning to the waitress as I realize that I don't quite fancy the walk back to the motel just yet. “Can I get one more of these?”

  Chapter Three

  As soon as I push open the door to my motel room, I hear something scraping against the floor. Looking down, I spot some sheets of paper that have been tucked under the door, and I pick them up as I kick the door shut and head to the bed.

  “Great,” I mutter as I see that Terrance and Daryl have printed out a list of all land-holders in the local area. Not that this is going to be much use, of course, but at least they were doing something tonight rather than getting paid to sit around eating and drinking.

  After I've taken a quick look at the names, I head through to the bathroom and brush my teeth to get rid of the whiskey taste. Then I change into my pajamas and drink a glass of water, before wandering back to the bed and sitting down. I almost grab my phone to check the news, but then I realize that I'll only get angry and depressed, so I take the print-out and take a look at the next couple of pages, looking at name after meaningless name.

  When I got into the news business, I thought I was going to make a difference. I wanted to be an investigative reporter, I wanted to focus on political or corporate corruption and really help to make the world a better place. Sure, I knew I'd have to spend some time wading through crime stories and all the really popular stuff, but I figured that eventually I'd manage to get onto the serious stuff. Maybe I was hopelessly naive, but I genuinely believed that journalism was some kind of higher calling. Now it's clear that the whole thing is a crock of -

  Suddenly I see the name Thomas Roper on the print-out, and two words slip from my mouth as I sit bolt upright on the bed.

  “Holy crap!”

  ***

  “Maybe it's a coincidence,” Terrance says, rubbing his sleepy ey
es. “Can we talk about this in the morning?”

  “There's no way this is a coincidence,” I reply, storming past him and entering his room, only to find that it stinks of potato chips and farts. “A girl goes missing, she's most likely been murdered,” I point out, “and guess who happens to own a house just outside town? Or a farm, or whatever the hell that property actually is. A slaughterhouse, for all we know. And it all belongs to the man who killed Esmee Waters ten years ago.”

  “He was never convicted of anything, was he?”

  “So? He did it.”

  “He was never even arrested. It was all just talk. They never even found Esmee's body.”

  “Bingo. Isn't this starting to seem a little familiar? Obviously the guy's really good at burying corpses! He's had practice!”

  I wait for his next brilliant attempt to tell me that I'm wrong, but instead he takes the print-outs from my hands and glances down the list. He's mumbling to himself as he reads, as if he has to say each name out loud.

  “A decade ago,” I continue, “a fifteen-year-old girl named Esmee Waters vanished from outside her home in a a town about twenty miles from here, and she was never seen again. The police were convinced that a local man, Thomas Roper, was responsible, but they could never pin it on him. There was a whole big media hoop-la about it, the case even made the national headlines. Eventually the trail went cold, and I guess Roper figured he'd gotten away with it and so he carried on with his life. Now here we are, ten years later, and a fifteen-year-old girl named Kimmy Duchette has gone missing in practically the same area.”

  “Wouldn't he have changed his name, though?” Terrance asks. “Or moved away? I mean, the guy was pretty notorious for a while.”

  “He was a complete loner. It's not like he has any friends to alienate.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “We have to look into this!”

  “Your breath smells like whiskey.”

  “There's a story here,” I tell him. “I don't know exactly what the story is, not yet, but I have a sense for these things and I'm telling you that there's a story. Coincidences this big are never just coincidences.”

  “I admit that this is all kinda odd,” he replies cautiously, clearly picking his words with great care, “but coincidences do happen. And I keep coming back to the simple fact that this Roper guy was never charged. In fact, if I remember right, his record was – and remains – spotless. He'd never even been given a citation for bad driving. He was just questioned over and over about that girl's disappearance, and the media dug through his private life like raccoons going through a trashcan. If that man was guilty, someone would've found something.”

  “Everyone knew that he was guilty, though,” I point out.

  “Did they really? Everyone? Then why is he still out and about?”

  “Because he was clever. Because he slipped through the net. Obviously he couldn't help himself, though. Obviously he finally broke down and struck again.” I pause for a moment, and my mind is racing. “He's probably spent the past ten years living in fear, worried that justice would finally catch up to him. But his urges were growing. Throbbing. Finally, he couldn't help himself. He figured that he could take the risk. He knew it was dangerous, but maybe that was part of the thrill. So he began to hunt again. He probably went out, day after day, night after night, scouring the local area for a vulnerable girl. Eventually he found Kimmy. Maybe he tracked her for a while, maybe he watched her through her bedroom window. Maybe he had night-vision goggles! And notebooks about her, with doodles! And finally he couldn't hold back, he burst out from the shadows and took her back to his place, and he did awful, terrible things to her. Really, truly grotesque things!” I pause again. “Or something like that.”

  “You scare me sometimes,” he replies.

  “Thank you.”

  “And you think the police here don't know about him?”

  “Of course they do. That's why that Malone guy was being so secretive. The last thing he needs is for the media to make this connection, they'd have a field day. I should have been suspicious from the start, when he was so keen for us to leave. He must know that Roper is at it again, but he doesn't have any proof yet. So he wants to keep us away until he's ready to make his move. He knows he can't afford to screw this up. He can't let this monster walk away from a second crime. This is typical small-town bullshit!”

  “So maybe we should respect that and, I dunno, not screw it up for him?”

  “This is a huge scoop!”

  “We're reporters,” he points out, “not cops.”

  “So?”

  “So we're supposed to report on the news, not try to make it.”

  “Whatever,” I reply. “Reporters and cops are basically the same thing, except we have a little more freedom to go after the bad guys. Reporters are just cops without rules.”

  “That's not quite how it works,” he replies, “and the legal department would never approve you running a story based on what you've got so far. Which, in case you hadn't noticed, is basically nothing. Roper could sue us into oblivion. If you want to report this link, you need way more than just a few coincidences. Maggie, no-one's going to let you go on the air with a bunch of assumptions and possibilities.”

  “So what's your suggestion?” I ask. “Do you think we should just not bother looking into it at all?”

  “I think you have to trust this Malone guy,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck as he stands with the door still open. “Can we please talk about this in the morning? I'm exhausted and I need to sleep.”

  “We're sitting on a huge story,” I reply, “and you want to sleep?”

  “Desperately, yes.” He pauses, before sighing. “I'm not going to get to, though, am I?”

  I pause for a moment. My mind is racing, and I know I need to come up with a plan. Finally I realize exactly what we should do next.

  “Get Daryl,” I say firmly.

  “Why?”

  “Wake him up.”

  “Why would -” He hesitates, staring at me, and finally I see a flicker of realization on his face. “No.”

  “We're going to -”

  “No!” he says again. “Absolutely not. I know what you're thinking and we're not doing it. No, Maggie. I meant it this time. No means no. We're not doing this.”

  “Oh, yes we are,” I reply, before placing a hand on his shoulder. “I'm gonna go get three coffees from the posher vending machine in reception, because I'm nice like that. Meanwhile, you go wake Daryl up. We meet at the van in fifteen minutes. Now move!”

  Chapter Four

  The van's headlights pick out a rough dirt road ahead of us, with thin, sick-looking trees on either side. It's a little past midnight now and, as we bump along through the cold air, I look at the darkness beyond the trees and I swear I feel as if we're out in the middle of nowhere.

  “There,” I say, suddenly spotting a very faint, very dim light up ahead.

  “This is seriously creepy,” Daryl says from the driver's seat. “Who the hell wants to live so far away from the rest of civilization?”

  “A man with something to hide,” I point out, squinting slightly in an attempt to see the light a little better. “A man who wants to get on with things, without people being able to see what he's doing. And without them being able to hear what he's doing.”

  “Or a man whose name was dragged through the mud,” Terrance suggests, “and who eventually had to move to a different state and try to start a new life. That kind of thing has got to screw you up.”

  “The darkness is his friend,” I continue.

  “Come again?”

  “He probably goes out into the forest, late at night, with night-vision goggles. He hunts people.”

  “That's a bit of a stretch,” he replies. “And why are you so obsessed with night-vision goggles? You're always talking about them, but I've never in my life met a single person who owned a pair.”

  “So we're not actually going to go to
his house, are we?” Daryl asks. “That's not the plan, is it?”

  “Just keep driving.”

  “But if -”

  “Keep driving,” I tell him, as the van bumps over a particularly large pothole. “I've got this covered. I just want to scope the place out and see the whites of this guy's eyes.”

  “You scare me sometimes,” Daryl says under his breath. “You really scare me, Maggie. And I'm not just saying that to try to get on your good side, either. You scare me in a very deep, honest way that goes to my very core.”

  “Just bring us to a stop by that gate,” I tell him, as a wooden fence emerges from the gloom, picked out by the van's headlights. “That looks like the way onto his property, right?” A moment later I spot a large 'Keep Out' sign next to the gate. “Perfect,” I add. “That's the way in.”

  “Most people see a sign like that and stay away,” Daryl points out. “You might want to consider that option.”

  “Stop the van, and stop being a smartass. You don't have the necessary sense of humor.”

  Sighing, he brings the van to a stop, and I immediately open the door and jump out into the cold night air. My feet land on the hard, dry ground, which is at least a step up from the mud I was expecting, but I've got to admit that it's freezing out here and I really wish I'd brought a jacket. I could borrow one from one of the guys, although after a moment I realize that maybe shivering would be a good compliment to the act I'm about to put on. It can't hurt to make myself look as pathetic as possible.

  “Are you really going to do this?” Daryl asks, before turning to Terrance. “She's really going to do this. She's getting worse.”

  “You guys remember the plan, right?” I ask.

  “Sure do,” Daryl says. “Wait until he murders you, and then head back to town and report your gruesome death.”

  “You'll be missed,” Terrance says dourly. “In some ways. We'll definitely notice that you're gone.”

  “He's not going to murder anyone tonight,” I tell them both. “Come on, the guy killed Esmee Waters ten years ago and now he's blatantly kidnapped Kimmy Duchette Whatever else he might be, he's certainly not dumb.” I turn and look toward the farmhouse, and I can just about make out a single electric light on what looks like some kind of long, low porch. “He already knows we're here,” I continue. “We're being watched right now.”